The Morning After
by Bella Sangue
Summary: New Moon Scene. Edward POV. Begins with Alice showing him all that Bella and Charlie told her, continues onto when Bella wakes up after she gets home, and talks to Edward. Read and Review, Please!
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer- If you don't know that Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight than how are you smart enough to stay alive?!

How could I put her through this? My beautiful angel, while still as enchanting as ever, had clearly suffered these past months. She had lost a lot of unnecessary weight. She had also acquired a heartbreaking set of semi-permanent dark circles under her eyes, doubtlessly from nightmares of the mess I had unknowingly left behind for her to deal with.

When we were on the return flight from Volterra, with Bella safely in my arms. She was eerily silent throughout our trip to the airport, and continued once we had settled on the plane. However, Alice was replaying her previous conversation with Charlie, for my benefit, along with bits and pieces of the discussion she had with Bella upon discovering her alive. First she showed me their informative debate about Bella's trip off the cliff.

_Bella sobbing on Alice's shoulder_

_Bella explaining how she didn't try to commit suicide._

_Alice suspiciously sniffing Bella's clothing only to inadvertently discover the reason Bella had not died after she jumped._

"_So, if the currents were too much for you, how did this Jacob manage?"_

"_Jacob is… strong." Bella answered uncertainly._

_Alice raising her eyebrows in question, knowing Bella would understand to elaborate._

"_See, well, he's… sort of a werewolf," she hurryingly admitted._

_Flash forward._

_Alice's eyes widening as she turns to stare at Bella with a shock easily written on her face, "Your best friend is a werewolf?"_

_Bella nodding sheepishly._

"_How long has this been going on?"_

"_Not long." She said, getting defensive. "He's only been a werewolf for just a few weeks."_

"_A YOUNG werewolf? Even worse!"_

_Flash forward._

_Bella telling her about everything that had happened since I had left her._

_Flash forward._

"_You look like hell, Bella."_

"_I drowned today," Bella replied bitterly._

"_It goes deeper than that. You're a mess."_

_Bella flinching, "Look, I'm doing my best."_

"_What do you mean?"_

"_It hasn't been easy. I'm working on it."_

"_Alice," Bella said sighing, "What did you think you were going to find? I mean, besides me dead? Did you expect to find me skipping around and whistling show tune? You know me better than that."_

I looked quickly over to Alice unbelievingly. She nodded grimly and continued on to the conversation she had with Charlie the next morning over breakfast. I braced myself for the worst.

A/N: I know it is incredibly cruel to leave you guys with a cliff hanger like this but my hand is cramping. So please review, (I'm a sucker for reviews!) and if you do than I will get started on another chapter!


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer- Basically all the dialogue from this and the last chapter belong to Stephenie Meyer. The only things that I own are Edward's thoughts about the situation.

"_How bad was it, Charlie?" Alice asking softly._

_Charlie sighed. "Real bad."_

"_Tell me about it. I want to know exactly what happened when we left."_

_After a pause Charlie began slowly, " I've never felt so helpless. I didn't know what to do. That first week-I thought I was going to have to hospitaiize her. She wouldn't eat or drink, she wouldn't move. Dr. Gerandy was throwing around words like 'catatonic', but I didn't let him up to see her. I was afraid it would scare her."_

"_She snapped out of it though?"_

"_I had Renee come to take her to Florida. I just didn't want to be the one… if she had to go to a hospital or something. I hoped being with her mother would help. But when we started packing her clothes, she woke up with a vengeance. I've never seen Bella throw a fit like that. She was never one for tantrums, but, boy, did she fly into a fury. She threw her clothes everywhere and screamed that we couldn't make her leave-and then she finally started crying. I thought that would be the turning point. I didn't argue when she insisted on staying here… and she did seem to get better at first…" Charlie trailed off. _

"_But?" Alice prompted gently._

"_She went back to school and work, she ate and slept and did her homework. She answered when someone asked her a direct question. But she was… empty. Her eyes were blank. There were lots of little things-she wouldn't listen to music anymore; I found a bunch CDs broken in the trash. She didn't read; she wouldn't be in the same room when the TV was on, not that she watched much before. I finally figured it out-she was avoiding everything that might remind her of… him._

"_We could hardly talk; I was so worried about saying something that would upset her- the littlest things would make her flinch-and she never volunteered anything. She would just answer if I asked her something. _

"_She was alone all the time. She didn't call her friends back, and after a while, they stopped calling. "It was like night of the living dead around here. I still hear her screaming in her sleep…" he said shuddering._

"_I'm so sorry, Charlie," Alice said glumly._

"_Its not _your _fault." Clearly holding me responsible for his daughter's breakdown; as he rightly should have. "You were always a good friend to her."_

"_She seems better now, though."_

"_Yeah. Ever since she started hanging out with Jacob Black, I've noticed a real improvement. She has some color in her cheeks when she comes home, some light in her eyes. She's happier." He paused and his voice was different when he spoke again. "He's a year or so younger than her, and I know she used to think of him as a friend, but I think maybe it's something more now, or headed that direction, anyway." Charlie said this in a tone that was suggestive of a warning for Alice to pass along to me, which she quite literally did._

"_Jake's old for his years. He's taken care of his father physically the way Bella took care of her mother emotionally. It matured him. He's a good-looking kid, too- takes after his mom's side. He's good for Bella, you know." I internally cringed at how I had come storming back into Bella's life just when she was starting to get better, clearly jeopardizing their relationship and her happiness, but also chastised myself for not coming back sooner._

"_Then it's good she has him," Alice agreed._

_Charlie sighed out a big gust of air, sheepishly giving into Alice's lack of resistance. "Okay, so I guess that's overstating things. I don't know… even with Jacob, now and then I see something in her eyes, and wonder if I've ever grasped how much pain she's really in. It's not normal, Alice, and it… it frightens me. Not normal at all. Not like someone… like her, but like someone died." He finished as his voiced cracked over the last word. _

_And it was true, because as I could clearly see in retrospect, I did the only thing that was worse than Victoria and my pitiful excuse for an existence, I caused not only an unimaginable amount of pain to myself, but also pushed my self-righteousness onto Bella, leaving her in pieces._

_Charlie continued in a hopeless tone, "I don't know if she's going to get over it-I'm not sure it's in her nature to heal from something like this. She's always been such a constant little thing. She doesn't get past things, change her mind." _

The whole time I had been watching this I had been stroking Bella's hair, she was clearly unsuspecting of my distraction, probably because she was exhausted. I looked down at my Bella and saw in her desperate brown eyes, how much this had changed her, how much it had aged her. She was never immature before but now that I had seen how she had dealt with all this I could tell that she had lost some of the innocence in her eyes. The torrent of questions I had expected never came. She was silent after she had admitted that she wouldn't sleep because she was afraid of nightmares, which was a good reason, but I could sense that there was something else keeping her awake that she wasn't telling me. But I didn't push, it had been a trying day following a terrible few terrible months.

I was caught up in my thoughts as well. Silently dwelling on the fact that I was terrified that she would not love me again, that I had hurt her too bad. Concerned as I was to find forgiveness from her, I knew better than to bring up the subject before she had time to collect her thoughts. Instead I focused on her being here with me. In between gulps of soda I kissed her delicately, everywhere; on her hair, her forehead, her wrists… anything just to touch her. But I didn't dare kiss her lips. I didn't know if I was forgiven yet and did not want to compromise what little serenity it was to just be in her presence. Meanwhile, she stroked my face gently, sending pleasant heat in shockwaves throughout my body. We continued on this way, neither one of uttering a single word, she may have had nothing to say, but I didn't want to ruin the bliss of what little time I had left before she left me. All the while, thinking to myself how incredibly fragile she looked, as though a single word could shatter her, shatter her down to her very core.

A/N- Leave me a review as to whether or not I should continue. But if I do it will start to get interesting.


	3. Chapter 3

The Morning After- Chapter 3

THANK YOU EVERYONE WHO REVIEWED!!! I LOVE YOU!! )

Disclaimer- I use a lot of Stephenie Meyer's material from the book, including dialogue. And obviously the characters too!

After our flight, we were greeted by my slightly hysterical family. Their concerned thoughts ranging from Esme's furiously overwrought notions, to Rosalie's pleas of apologies, and most painful of all Carlisle's smooth voice, full of pain and hurt, claiming _We thought we lost you Edward. _He gave me a look that meant that we would talk when I got home after I had settled Bella in.

I looked at Bella's eyes recognizing slight embarrassment and some other troubling emotion I couldn't explain. Wanting to save her from any other pain, I looked in the direction of the troubling situation and saw Jasper and Alice staring into one another's eyes, caught in a beautiful moment of relief and gratitude. Sensing Bella's discontent in the first place, I was not surprised when she quickly looked away, averting her eyes from their tender, and private moment.

As we arrived at her house, I could hear the surprise, pain, and protectiveness in Charlie's thoughts. After taking Bella up to bed, I silently berated myself as Charlie made his feelings for me clear. He made sure that I understood that I was no longer welcome in his house, among other things. After he asked me to leave, I had Rosalie and Emmett drive home, assuring Rosalie that while I had forgiven her, I was still upset with her. When I got back to the house, I asked my family for a raincheck on our serious discussion. They said yes while making sure I understood that they would not let me back out on it but also my reluctance to be away from Bella. I ran back to Bella's, knowing that I had some time before she would wake from her slightly comatose state, I decided that I would wait in the woods until Charlie decided to turn in for the night. While I was waiting in the woods, I discreetly picked Charlie's brain for any other information that Bella had neglected to tell Alice. At around 9:30 I heard Charlie's mind declare it is was time for bed, and at 10 I was relieved to hear his snoring.

I snuck into Bella's room, bringing a melancholic de ja vu from better nights forward into my mind, and watched as she slept. Without her sleep talk to distract me, I decided my time would best be used to formulate a plan about what I would say to Bella when she woke up. I decided that I would ask for her forgiveness and silently agreed with myself that despite what little dignity I had left I would grovel at her feet if I had to.

A little before 1 I heard her heart beat speed up, giving me plenty of notice, so I was not surprised when she inhaled deeply willing herself awake. I tenderly stroked her forehead not wanting her to be startled when she opened her eyes to me sitting at her bedside. Suddenly she squeezed her eyes tightly shut. After a moment she opened her eyes, looking up at me, and threw her fist abruptly over her eyes. By now I was completely confused; did she want me to leave without talking to her? Impossible I thought; she was always to curious for her own good and I knew that she had a thousand and one questions that she would want answered. But maybe she didn't want me to answer them. As I was debating on whether I should go get Alice, she opened her eyes again.

"Did I frighten you?" I asked nervously.

She paused for a moment, blinking twice as a slightly distraught expression spread over her moonlit features.

"Oh, CRAP." She whispered roughly.

"What's wrong, Bella?" Was I the source of her sudden outburst?

She frowned at me, "I'm dead, right?" moaning slightly, "I DID drown. Crap, crap, crap! This is gonna kill Charlie."

I frowned right back at her, "You're not dead." This explained her earlier reaction.

"Then why I am I not waking up?" she asked defensively, raising her delicate eyebrows.

"You ARE awake, Bella." No wonder Charlie wanted to kill me, I had completely messed up her ability to distinguish between nightmares and real life.

She shook her head, unbelieving of the truth. "Sure, sure. That's what you want me to think. And then it will be worse when I do wake up. _If _I wake up, which I won't because I'm dead. This is awful. Poor Charlie. And Renee and Jake…" She trailed off in horror. I wondered how long it would take for her to see the reality of the situation.

"I can see where you might confuse me with a nightmare." I smiled humorlessly, waiting for her to ask me, as polite as she was, to get out. "But I can't imagine what you could have done to wind up in hell. Did you commit many murders while I was away?" I tried to discreetly look in her eyes for some clue to tell me how she was responding to all of this. But she quickly grimaced in response to my sarcasm.

"Obviously not. If I was in hell, you wouldn't be with me." I sighed not letting myself hope to much as to what that meant. But I could feel how her simple words warmed my icy heart and started to fill the empty hole in my chest. Suddenly I saw her eyes getting clearer as my words and our situation began to sink in. She quickly glanced out the window at the darkness, away from my face, and back again. Then she did something that made my heart burst with the need to hold her safely in my arms again, she blushed.

A/N- okay I know it was like COMPLETELY cruel for me to leave off at that part but I feel like this is a turning point for Edward, because I think that when she blushed he no longer felt that he would fight for her forgiveness but instead he _knew _that if she turned him away, he would never recover. Basically the same way that Bella felt when it actually hit her that Edward "didn't" want her, and she saw her whole world crumble around her. Edward realizes that he could never live without her again the moment he sees her not just alive but _living. _Okay sorry done with my obsessive analysis! Also I'm really sorry that my chapters I soo short! Please, please, please leave me reviews, if people don't leave me reviews I basically stop writing so, yeah REVIEW!!!


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